


Reformation

by OffYourBird



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dark, Drama, F/M, Romance, Season/Series 06, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-02-28 17:51:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 20,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13276737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OffYourBird/pseuds/OffYourBird
Summary: When a Buffy from another dimension rescues Spike after he’s left beaten in Dead Things, his and Buffy's world is irrevocably turned upside down.





	1. Gone

**Author's Note:**

> This is a small side fic to an event that happens in A Different Kind of (Sunny)hell, the third installment of the Jumpverse series, but it’s not at all necessary to have read it for this piece to make sense.
> 
> For those who haven’t read ADKoSh, a quick summary of relevant ADKoSh events is as follows: A Buffy from another dimension appears in the canonverse during Dead Things, landing in the alleyway outside Sunnydale police station on top of a wounded Spike. She brings him to Revello Drive, tends to his wounds by letting him feed from her, confronts Buffy about her abuse, and then disappears – assumedly back to her own dimension – after sparring with canon Buffy at the Magic Box (where canon Buffy breaks down regarding her depression and affair with Spike).
> 
> Disclaimer: All of Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon and ME. Everything else is mine, for your pleasure.

He knew Buffy had returned from the Magic Box almost before the front door creaked open on the house at Revello Drive. Every sense was inexorably attuned for the barest smidge of her presence. Crumbs for a starving man.

He also knew she was alone.

She stopped in the living room doorway and stood watching him on the couch. Silent. Her gaze made him feel like an insect on display. One of those types you’d see in a bloody science museum – all his innards cut and splayed, held gaping with pushpins. Dead and ripped open.

“She’s gone then?” he managed to ask, not looking at her. Dead things didn’t stare back, after all.

“She’s gone.”

The last vestiges of his heart broke, dissolved right then in his unbeating chest. The mysteriously arrived Buffy from another dimension – a Buffy who loved him – was gone. He sat up abruptly, peeking through the curtains. The smell of sunrise was near. Of course, he’d known that without looking – it was a constant buzz on the edges of his awareness. But the gesture was an easy excuse for something to do, something that didn’t tell her he’d turned to dust already. Sunlight or no. “Right. I’ll be off then. Think I can still make it to the sewers.”

He rose to his feet, brushing past Buffy without a word. She didn’t move – make any kind of response – until he opened the front door.

“Spike.”

He stopped immediately, one hand clenched against the doorframe. He didn’t dare look back. He listened to the thrum of his blood instead, his veins still singing with the power of Other!Buffy’s gift. God, she had felt so good in his lap, her eyes filled with a kind of warmth he hadn’t known Buffy’s eyes could display. Well, not toward him, anyway. Not since Red’s damned Will Be Done spell. And even in all his fantasies – evil and otherwise – he’d never imagined anything that tasted as sweet as Other!Buffy had, her lifeforce coursing through his lips and filling him with heat and light and grace. But it wasn’t just the blood. She’d healed his face with it, sure, but her gentle touch on his cheek had done just as much.  _I care about you, too, you know… I’m not sure there’s a version of you I wouldn’t care about._

His eyes blinked shut, his body aching for that other Buffy. But she was gone, and with her she’d taken all of her warmth. Back to some other Spike who actually deserved her. “Just don’t, Buffy.”

“ _Don’t?!_ ”

Her tone was dangerously offended. Before last night, he might have encouraged it (who was he bloody kidding, he  _would_  have encouraged it), just for the attention. Just so she’d look at him, or touch him, or acknowledge that he was real. But now he knew too much.

“I don’t think you should come by the crypt anymore,” he whispered, swallowing roughly, glad she couldn’t see the despair he knew was etched on his face.

There was silence.

Then, in a disbelieving whisper, “You’re breaking up with me?” 

He laughed hoarsely, bitterly. Of course, now that he was leaving (not even threatening – he was past that),  _now_  she'd claim there was something to break. Bloody typical. Anger lit in his chest, giving him the strength to turn back to her. She was standing there in her usual radiance, looking almost pole-axed. Her beautiful face was pale from crying, her green eyes pouring with desperate emotion – so many emotions he couldn’t even begin to sort them. God, it sapped him, to look at her face. He just didn’t have the energy anymore. “Have to have had a real relationship to be breaking up, Buffy,” he said evenly.

They both flinched at the same time. Other!Buffy had been married to him, after all. He’d never have believed her, if not for the rings. And the bite marks. And the gut-wrenching way she had even known how he liked his sodding tea.  _I love you, too_. Oh, it was the words that had truly done him in, no bones about it. A Buffy that hadn’t died and been resurrected might have loved him. Did, apparently, in at least one dimension. But not here. Here he’d failed her, let her become broken. His Buffy hated herself. Other!Buffy had said as much, as matter-of-factly as one might have talked about the weather. She hated herself. She hated him. Not that the last was a surprise to think. He knew she hated him. God, he’d known that forever. But he’d always had hope before. Hope that maybe her hatred was something else; a cover for feelings she didn’t want to feel. But now he knew the difference. Other!Buffy’s eyes were nothing like hers. There was no love to be found in this Buffy’s gaze. Not even enough for herself.

Buffy’s expression turned flat under his scrutiny, her green eyes hardening to emeralds almost on cue, as if reading his thoughts. “She’s not coming back, Spike.”

His mouth twisted _. Oh, Buffy... You don’t understand me at all, pet_. “No,” he agreed softly, turning back to the door. “And neither am I.” And with that, he drew up the lapels of his duster and made a dash for the sewer grate.

He didn’t look back.


	2. Remains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With some dialogue adapted from S6.13 "Dead Things"

Buffy wasn’t sure how long she stood near the entryway, staring at the open front door. Flickering bits of memory filled her, all jumbled; mom’s voice warning her that she was letting in all the bugs. Or letting out all the cold air. Or being indecisive, and would she please close the door already.

Buffy just watched the door creak slightly, bullied by an early morning breeze. Nothing strong enough to actually move the bulk of wood by more than a whisper. Just enough to threaten an action that never coalesced.

If she watched the door stirring and waited for it to move, she wouldn’t have to think about Spike leaving her.

No.

There was only the door, and her mother’s scolding voice. But then mom’s voice was replaced before she could stop it, by another, far more familiar one – the words incredibly more biting for sounding like her own.  _William has always had a lot of heart. One that you’re stomping all over._

No, she thought desperately. Just watch the door. But her mind didn’t listen. The words repeated in endless litany.  _Stomping all over._

But Spike wasn’t supposed have a heart. There should have been nothing to stomp over. He was the one thing she could hurt without reproach, when she already had too much angry guilt waiting in queue. Too much that she was failing at. Too much she had to care about and didn’t have the ability to.

Spike could make her feel, but he never made her care.

She stared at the open door. Suddenly, it was no longer a vantage of safety. It was an accusation.  _You stomped all over. You made the vampire who never left… leave._

Most of her wanted to believe he wasn’t really gone. He was just angry. Indignant. Trying to get her to follow him.

But the rawest part of her didn’t think so. She’d never seen his eyes look at her like that before. And she’d thought she’d seen every expression in his arsenal. Even the ones she caught when she didn’t want to. Or the ones she told herself didn’t really exist.

This hadn’t been any of those. Not just anger or hopelessness or resignation. No, he had looked at her with clarity. With grief. As if a veil was suddenly thrown back, and everything that had been before was no longer real. No longer mattered.

It had been like a sucker punch to the stomach. So, of course, her first instinct had been to lash out. To fight back. To attack his obvious feelings for the version of her that had rocked them both in the space of only a few hours.  _She’s not coming back, Spike._

And that had just made things worse (she was good at that).

And now he was gone.

Buffy slid slowly to the floor, the hallway wall at her back. Her body felt fuzzy with lack of sleep, drained from an excess of tears, bruised from Other!Buffy’s fists. Her mind was still in sharp focus, however, like a broken camera with a clean lens. And just as useless. A camera like that couldn’t even take photos. It just looked like it could.

She watched the sun rise through the open door. It was blinding.

Tara found her sometime later, quietly treading down the staircase. “Buffy?”

Buffy turned listlessly toward her, silent.

When it became apparent Buffy wasn’t going to offer a vocal reply, Tara ventured a curious, “Is the other Buffy here? Does she still need the Scoobies’ help getting back?”

“She’s gone,” Buffy said steadily, her words sounding far away – even to her own ears.

“That’s good!” A pause. “Or is, if she made it back to her dimension and n-not somewhere else.”

Buffy turned back to the door and didn’t reply. She tried not to think. She didn’t even have enough capacity to worry about _this_ dimension. All the others were out of luck.

There was a moment of silence, then, “Did Spike leave?”

Buffy’s stomach turned over abruptly, and she thought for a moment she might be sick. Unwanted memories filled her, a lifetime of lovers gone wrong. Angel’s leering dismissal after their first and only night together. His silhouette in the chaos after graduation – standing there only long enough to butcher her heart entirely before melting into the night. Riley telling her he’d been offered a job in South America. The loud pulsing noise of his helicopter heading into the night, the wind from the blades still disturbing the air. Buffy clenched her jaw so hard it was a miracle her teeth didn’t break. The grating of enamel steadied her, helped her insides settle. Spike didn’t belong in that category with the others.  _Have to have had a real relationship to be breaking up, Buffy._

“He left.”

“Oh.” Tara looked at her hesitantly. “I–I finished rechecking the resurrection spell, like you wanted. I planned to tell you last night, but…”

“But I tried to put myself in jail and beat up Spike,” Buffy finished for her tonelessly. “Oh, and another version of me came around to remind me how very wrong I came back.”

“W-well, that’s what I wanted to tell you. You didn’t come back wrong. It’s all just surfacey stuff from the spell.” The blonde witch gave her a reassuring smile. “Kind of like a deep cellular tropical tan. No more effect th-than a bad sunburn. But it’s probably enough to confuse the sensors or whatever in Spike’s chip.”

Buffy stared at her. She felt another rush from her stomach churning as more of Other!Buffy’s words surfaced.

_I have no real idea what you guys keep talking about with this vague ‘wrong’ crap, but unless you’re being controlled by some outside force, does it really matter? How you treat people is on you._

“Oh,” she managed finally. She laughed weakly, leaning back against the wall. She was only aware that her laughter had turned into sobs when Tara lightly touched her shoulder, bringing her focus back.

“Buffy? Is… is that not a good thing?”

She thought again of Spike’s eyes, hard and blue. And done with her.  _How you treat people is on you._

But Spike wasn’t a person.

The much-used thought should have been comforting – it had been for years – but now it was just exhausting. Other!Buffy’s accusing gaze was attached to the thought now, cold and unyielding. Daring her to continue the lie. Because, person or not, Spike could feel. And feel in a way that mattered – a way that would identify him as human in some, probably any, blindfolded test.

She just didn’t understand how. How could a dead thing feel when a living thing couldn’t? How could sheathing herself in cold make her burn with such terrible heat?

It was wrong. No, it was lower than that. It was perverse.

But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that she’d  _always_  known Spike could feel emotion, long before she was the one who couldn’t anymore. In truth, ever since she held a stake to his bimbo girlfriend's heart four years ago. But admitting she’d always known – that she’d known it last year and the year before that, and every day in between… Well, it meant Spike wasn’t the real monster in the situation. It meant she was.

Other!Buffy’s words rang harshly in her ears.  _Tell me exactly how much of a monster you really are._

“B-buffy?” Tara was looking at her with deep concern. “Is that not a good thing?”

Buffy wiped away the traitorous tears that dampened her cheeks and pulled herself stiffly to her feet. “It just shouldn’t have mattered either way.”

Then she crossed the intervening space to the front door and slammed it shut.


	3. Abandoned

It was easier said than done, of course. The not going back. He wasn’t really sure how to go about it, to be perfectly bloody honest. He spent half his time convincing himself to not go about it at all. And he spent all of his time pacing. It was a damn good thing his crypt had a stone floor, or else he’d have worn right through it. His strides were jerky and fierce, everything in him writhing like the caged animal he was.

He didn’t abandon the girl just because she was down in the dumps. He didn't abandon the girl, period. But Other!Buffy’s eyes wouldn’t leave him. They were haunting him, terrible specters that plagued his every waking moment. Prodding him with the blistering reminder of everything he’d never have. If he’d been human, he was sure it would have stolen his breath, that kind of agony. It hung across his chest like an anchor. Like the bloody mariner’s albatross.

“Instead of the cross, the albatross about my neck was hung,” he all but snarled.

Spike paused in mid-step, irritated. Christ, only a few hours of another Buffy – one he’d apparently read poetry to (and if he ever needed a sharper reminder that the other Buffy hadn’t been his, there it was, stark as the burning sun) – and he was already miming Coleridge.

He slumped against the crypt wall, burying his face in his hands, everything in him trembling. He slid to the floor.  _Buffy. Christ, Buffy._

He wasn’t even sure which one he was addressing anymore.

He wasn’t made to be alone. He knew it, down to the depths of the empty shell that used to hold a soul. That used to hold a man. But more than that, he didn’t want  _her_  to be alone. She deserved better than that. Everyone she needed had bloody well abandoned her. Her lovers, her Watcher, even her so-called friends. They kept waiting for a Buffy who was never coming back.

Just like he did now.

He sat up, swallowing roughly, and dug a cigarette from his duster. He lit it abruptly, letting the flame singe his fingertips.

He was abandoning her. And he wasn’t made for that. But what the hell was he even abandoning? Hatred? Disgust?

He took a drag of his cigarette, watching a dusting of ash float to the floor.

Well, the shagging, that was for sure. But when it was just an expression in self-loathing by one party, did it even count anyway? It counted to him, but that didn’t mean squat. If only one out of the two people was really awake, it was no better than a dream.

He took another pull of his cigarette, letting the smoke fill his dead lungs. He could hold it there forever, he surmised, letting it twist and bend in his chest, taking the place of all the useless words and sounds and hopes that he always wanted to say and she never wanted to hear.

He exhaled.

He wasn’t sure whether he was more relieved or heartsick that she hadn’t come to him. He’d asked her not to, but when had she ever listened to what he wanted? The aching portions of him (god, weren’t they all fucking aching, for one reason or another?) hoped she’d barge in and end his torment and his god damned fucking resistance.

He still wanted her. He wanted her in every way a man could want a woman, and a dozen other ways besides. Even though he’d only ever been allowed the one. Still, that one was insistent enough. His prick ached for her, always hard, trying to convince his heart that plunging into one or more of the holes in her flesh would fill all the gaping wounds that made up his.

His cigarette burned down and he tossed it to the ground, grinding it slowly beneath his boot.

It didn’t matter. She was never going to see him as a man. The bloody irony of the whole thing was that she’d almost treated him like one until she’d decided he had all the right physical trappings for the job. And then his heart had suddenly become less real. He’d become her sodding fuck toy.

God, but he had bleeding tragic taste in women.

And now it was her birthday.

And here he was, nearly sobbing like the completely wretched git that he was. The thought made him growl. It made him burn. He slipped into his demon face without a thought and rose to his feet, eyeing everything around him with a sudden, tight hatred.

He’d fucked Buffy in every inch of the place. No. She’d fucked him. He’d just been there. Trying to make love.

And she’d never love him.

There was nothing left here.

He picked up the sarcophagus lid and flung it against the wall. He watched it shatter. The chair went next, with the telly after, all in bits and pieces. Then went anything else left that could break. When there was nothing else, he punched the wall until his arms were numb. Borrowed blood streamed down his skin, leaving dark splashes against the stone.

Then he turned and went downstairs and packed a bag.

He almost left without another thought, forsaking everything to molder. How bloody poetic that his latest life would lay in repose in a fucking cemetery. It was as dead as anything else there, after all. Deader, now.

But he didn’t want her to have the satisfaction of thinking he’d dusted himself. Or been dusted.  _You killed me, Buffy. But not like that._

When she knew he was gone, she’d know for sure that he had left of his own free will. What was left of it, anyway.

He paused for a moment, digging through the few books he’d thrown in his bag – the ones he was careful to never leave laying around. The ones she’d never seen. Not that she’d ever looked. She never looked.

He found the page he wanted and ripped it clean from the binding, adding a few lines with a pen. Then he left it to lie in the middle of the trashed floor. If she bothered to look for him, she’d find it. He wondered how long it would stay.

Maybe forever.

Maybe he didn’t give a fuck.

He could pretend, anyway.


	4. Laid Bare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With some dialogue from S6.13 "Dead Things" and S6.14 "Older and Far Away"

Some kind of dam had broken. Everything that had been carefully fuzzy and gray was now bright and jagged.

Everything hurt.

It felt almost like when she’d arrived in her coffin, disoriented and prone, in a body that had stopped living months ago. Except then everything had hurt in the kind of way a nightmare did: terrifying in the moment, but with reality so off kilter that she had been continually expecting to wake up.

Buffy felt dirty the instant she came back to earth. Filthy with grave dirt, filthy with life. It leached into her clothes and her skin and her soul. Dirty for existing. Dirty for being in any place that wasn’t heaven.

But being the Slayer had taught her nothing else if it hadn’t taught her how to lie. Lie to her mother, lie to her Watcher, lie to herself. Only, there was no escape from the lie when she was impaling herself on Spike’s cock. When she was burying everything she hated about being alive into his dead body. He made her feel too much.

It was easier to pretend it was him that was making her dirty than to admit the truth.

She was the dirt. She was unworthy. She was the dead thing, as soulless as a souled thing could get. Why else had Willow been allowed to rip her from eternal rest? As if the Powers couldn’t have stopped it if they’d really wanted to.

Spike was her reminder. He was her punishment. He was her clarity.

She craved him in the way any suicidal person craved the razor blade. All the tiny cuts from Spike’s touch weren’t enough to take her back to the grave, but they reminded her it was only a step away. That it was where she belonged, but didn’t deserve to be.

And now she felt it all even without his embrace.

Except, now it wasn’t just  _feeling_  that coursed through her. It was… life.

And she wasn’t honestly sure if that was better or worse than before.

Riley and Angel leaving had made her feel cold. Spike leaving made her feel burning. Blood red. Not the familiar cold rage that had twined through her with choking numbness, holding her so tightly she vibrated with it. No. No, this was pain. Down and out pain.

It made her feel about a million years old. Older than the other Buffy, who claimed to be over a hundred. Who knew how long she’d been in heaven, anyway? It could have been a year. It could have been forever. Either way, she knew she didn’t wear her age nearly as well. It’d marred her soul and not her skin.

And now that soul was agonizingly dipped in the sensation of living, reminding her that it still functioned, even if barely.

And now it was her birthday.

She’d been trying so hard to play along like it was life as usual before Other!Buffy’s visit. Trying to pretend that she was a well-adjusted Buffy who wasn’t actually one more pipe breakage away from bankruptcy or one more failure away from a complete mental breakdown.

So, of course, having a birthday party had been a necessity. Because her birthdays had always gone so well, after all. She’d figured if she was going to lie through her teeth about everything else, might as well throw her birthday in there for a little extra added irony.

She’d been planning to invite her Doublemeat co-worker Sophie (because a well-adjusted Buffy just couldn’t have not made some kind of work friend) but she’d stopped herself short at the last minute, two days after Other!Buffy’s visit. Her other self’s words were ringing in her ears, surprisingly kind.  _You’re never going to be pre-death Buffy again._

As much as Buffy didn’t know what to think about the other woman, she did find herself trusting her, almost against her better judgment. Besides, it wasn’t exactly a shocking phrase. Not even an unknown one. It was just one that hadn’t been an acceptable answer before. Now it was simply the truth laid bare.  _You’re never going to be pre-death Buffy again._  Spike had tried to tell her as much in his own, twisted way. But she hadn’t wanted to hear it. Rather, she heard it all. And absorbed it all. And believed it.

But the world couldn’t know that. It could never be the truth outside of his cold embrace.

Well, not until ten days ago.

Now the truth was like the first gasp after having drowned (and oh, how well she knew that sensation). There was no going back to the drowning. Because now she was breathing and listening to her bruised ribs creak against her chest and realizing that nothing was ever going to be the way it was before.

And the terrifying part was that she didn’t really want it to.

The breaking point came when Xander and Anya oh-so-kindly invited a blind date for her to her own birthday party. Because normal Buffy needed a normal boyfriend. Because everything was okay and fine and normal had always worked out just so well for her before, thank you for asking.

As they stood staring at her expectantly in the kitchen, waiting for the false smile she’d managed to make look so real in the past few months (even fooling herself sometimes), Buffy found herself at a standstill.

So instead she looked at the back door and waited for it to open. It was always moments like these when Spike inevitably showed up. Always uninvited. Always perfectly timed to remind her that someone named Richard was the kind of ‘git’ who had a dog, three pairs of shoes, and absolutely no business in the world of the Slayer.

But the door didn’t open.

Buffy turned back to her anxious friends, her tongue already thick with the expected sharp comment (not too sharp, just enough to hint at her disapproval without stepping out of line and betraying how not normal she was), but the words died on her tongue.

What came out instead was, “I’ve been sleeping with Spike.”

Xander burst out into laughter right then and there, nearly choking on a piece of appetizer. “Oh, that’s a good one, Buffy. That’s… that’s…” he trailed off, looking from her bleak face to Anya’s shocked one and back. He cleared his throat abruptly. “Oh. Oh, you weren’t joking.”

Anya looked at her hesitantly. “Well, that’s… nice? I mean, I’m sure it’s very nice, with many orgasms, but–”

“Ahn!” Xander said hoarsely. “Not… just don’t mention… That’s not…” he trailed off again. The whites of his eyes were showing.

The doorbell rang then, and Xander immediately excused himself to answer it. He paused in the doorway at the last moment. “Buffy. You…” He took a deep breath. “God, I’m really going to regret asking this, but…  _Why_?”

Buffy felt herself laugh slightly, a soft kind of angry sound. There were a million answers to that question, after all. Finally, she settled on the easiest. “Because I wanted to.”

Needless to say, her birthday party was anything but normal after that. And that was before realizing no one could leave (around 10pm, when the lack of conversation became awkward enough for even Richard to notice). Of course, with the way things were turning out, it was hardly a surprise to learn that Willow was hoarding magic supplies, or that Dawn had turned into a kleptomaniac, or that a demon Buffy had slain two nights ago was somehow very much alive again and attacking them through the walls.

By the time it came to light that Dawn had made the wish that imprisoned them, there wasn’t really much surprise left to throw around.

Buffy found herself in her mostly dark room, arms clasped around her waist. It was almost the same light level as Spike’s crypt, and finally she felt like she could breathe. How terrible that she felt more at home in a dead man’s abode than her own. She’d made him pay for that perversity, over and over again.

_I love you._

_No, you don't._

_You think I haven't tried not to?_

_Try harder._

Finally, only about a million minutes too late, she at last knew why very word out of her mouth was condemnation or belittlement. Because she deserved to feel ashamed. And he was constantly trying to convince her that she didn't.

_Try harder._

Her own words echoed bitterly back at her. In the end it didn’t really matter if what he felt for her was really love, or just some soulless approximation thereof. And god, the realization burned in her chest. Why couldn’t she stop burning?

Dawn came up behind her quietly. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“I know.”

“No.” Dawn’s voice rose, shrill. “You don’t know! You have this thing you do. You have all these friends.” Then, softly, “You have no idea what it's like.”

Buffy turned to her slowly, and looked at her sister. Really looked at her. Looked at the lines of distress and anger and hurt around her eyes, and the desperation along the edges of her mouth, and the aching loneliness that rested along the hunch of her shoulders. How long had it been since she had really looked at anyone? “You’re right.”

Whatever her sister had been expecting, it wasn’t that. Her chin trembled, but her eyes flashed. “I’m  _right_?”

“You’re right.”

The two sisters just stared at each other for a long moment. Then a kind of hiccuping sob erupted from Dawn’s throat and Buffy found herself holding a sobbing teenager. The weight of life and forgiveness and tears drenched her in heat.

When the curse was finally lifted, the others filed out immediately, like panicked cattle. Xander and Anya were helping an injured Richard out the door when Xander turned back to her from the porch, his lips a flat line.

“Buff, I’m worried about you.”

Willow stepped up uncertainly, glancing at the others. “We all are.”

At the edge of the group, Tara shifted away from the others apologetically.

Buffy looked back at the main group, her arms firmly around an exhausted Dawn. She felt the tug of the expected answer float on her lips again, just waiting to be released, mixed in with all the other things she could never say.  _Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry, I know it was stupid. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell you that my sleeping with Spike is actually past tense, as I’m pretty sure I finally chased him off. Don’t worry, in the future, I’ll try not to be such a burden to your sense of normal_. Instead, she said, “You all spend a lot of time worrying about my choices when you should probably be worrying about your own.”

Then she shut the door on them.

Dawn looked up at her with tired curiosity. “What was that about?”

“Nothing important.”

 

***

 

When she was sure Dawn was asleep, Buffy found herself on her way to Spike’s crypt almost before she knew where she was going. There was no telling what the others would do now that they knew about her affair. The least she could do was warn him to lay low. Unbidden, the image of Spike’s swollen face met her memory, so damningly thrown into relief by the light of the living room, accompanied by Other!Buffy’s steely voice. _With the way you treat him, he’s better off not being yours._

Her throat tightened. She walked faster, the sidewalk blurring beneath her feet in the dark.

And there was something else nagging at her now, laying coiled in the bottom of her stomach. Some words she wanted to say that refused to form. She hoped seeing Spike’s face would enlighten her. Even painful clarity was better than none at all.

Except, when she arrived at his crypt, her first thought was that she’d still somehow been too late. Everything was in shambles, down to even the sarcophagus lid, which was shattered into three pieces.  _Oh god._  Her heart weighed heavy and hurting and gasping in her chest, nearly driving her to her knees.

Not again. She couldn’t have failed again.

But she drove her feet forward, almost in a trance, determined to find the dust among the wreckage. To find the latest piece of her life she had destroyed.

When she saw the downstairs was mostly untouched, hope lit in her like a burning light, nearly scorching. But then she realized most of the things that made it lived-in were gone, and everything else tumbled to the ground, as if sorted through in a hurry. One pile caught her eye, some collection of books. One was blank, an empty journal of thick paper wrapped in leather. Black, of course. She tucked it under her arm and made her way back upstairs. The weight felt nice in the crook of her elbow.

She looked around the ruins again, unable to make sense of any of it. Had he fled an attack on his crypt? There was no dust (well, dust that didn’t belong) but…

Her foot caught a small piece of paper – what looked like a page torn hastily from a book. But the book was nowhere in sight, just like the rest of the pages. It was only when she bent down to read it, that she realized what it was, a flash of memory rising.

 

_Buffy knew her mouth was twisting in a bitter line. Glory’s portal in another world had taken her to the past? “Sounds like a nicer portal than mine. You know, with the whole not making you dead thing.”_

_“Life in itself is nothing,” Other!Buffy said softly, unreadably. It sounded like a quote, like something she was supposed to have known._

_“Huh?”_

_Spike made a small noise from the couch. “It’s Millay.”_

_Buffy felt exasperation fill her, twinned with a kind of jealously that Spike apparently understood whatever was going on. This was a version of herself. Wasn’t she supposed to know her best? “I have no idea what either of you are saying.”_

_Other!Buffy shrugged. “It’s from a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay.” She glanced back at Spike, her expression shockingly affectionate. “You read it to me every April.”_

_Spike looked at the visiting woman with immense wonder. It was a look Buffy recognized, nearly as sharp as when she’d come back from the dead. A look that something as simple as a poem apparently warranted as well. “Do I now?”_  

 

And now Spike had left that poem for her here, three of the lines abruptly underlined.

 

 _To what purpose, April, do you return again?_  
_Beauty is not enough._  
_You can no longer quiet me with the redness_  
_Of little leaves opening stickily._  
_ I know what I know. _  
_The sun is hot on my neck as I observe_  
_The spikes of the crocus._  
_The smell of the earth is good._  
_It is apparent that there is no death._  
_ But what does that signify? _  
_Not only under ground are the brains of men_  
_Eaten by maggots._  
_Life in itself_  
_Is nothing,_  
_An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs._  
_ It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, _  
_April_  
_Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers._

 

A sharp swell of pain rose in her chest, bitter and biting. Buffy crushed the page in her fist. Her first instinct was to crumple it into a ball and throw it away. Cast the pain as far from her as it could get.

But, god, hadn’t she done enough of that already?

She stared down at the paper, her eyes glued to the underlined words.  _But what does that signify?_

Slowly, she uncreased the battered page and placed it gently in the middle of her found journal, where it couldn’t fall out. Then she looked around the empty crypt again, a collection of ended things.

And at last she knew what she’d really come to say. What the awful maelstrom was that was rollocking in the pit of her stomach.

“I’m sorry, Spike.”

And then she stood and listened to the silence that echoed back.


	5. Rebirth

He ran over the ‘Welcome to Sunnydale’ sign on his way out of town. It was bloody cathartic, all told. The shivering pleasure of the act carried him for several miles on the way to LA. But as the road continued to roar by, his quick, vicious high fell into quiet. The hum of the Desoto’s motor wound into his brain like a static tape, constant and empty.  _Fucking hell._  He had left. Really, truly left. Left his heart, left his better sense (or worst – the jury was still out), left the town at the arse end of nowhere that had stolen his reputation and his power and his resiliency.

He sort of wished he could run over the sodding sign once more, just for good measure.

He imagined splintering it completely apart, shredding the painted wood beneath his tires. Imagined setting the whole thing ablaze and letting the fumes roll through his nose with cleansing surety as he lit a smoke from one of the embers.

It was soothing.

It was better than thinking about her face.

It was better than thinking about how every passing second tested the limits of his will, screaming at him to  _turn the goddamn car around_  and fall at her feet.

But she’d probably just kick him in the face if he did.

He growled, fingers tightening on the cold metal of the steering wheel.

There was nothing real to go back to. Not even the prison of his crypt. He’d made sure of that. He’d put paid to his life in Sunnyhell, good and proper.

He kept driving.

He glanced at the bit of dirty receipt paper crumpled on the seat beside him, a simple number scrawled across it. His salvation. If the demon who’d given him the information was good for it. But Spike had actually paid the tosser and promised a slow and painful death besides. So the information was good.

He bloody well hoped.

If not… well, no use worrying about being buggered before he’d gotten there.

A pang went through him when the LA suburbs came into view. All normal like, with their dangerous picket fences and their stupidly self-absorbed lawns, and their bloody boring craftsmanship. Normal like his girls had never had the chance to have _. Niblet, I’m sorry_ , he thought quietly. He hoped she’d forgive him when she learned he’d gone without so much as a goodbye. But he knew she’d have been the final nail in his metaphorical coffin. He’d never have been able to leave if she went and blubbered at him. Not after everything they’d been through together. Not after an interminable number of days where all they had to stay whole was each other. When they’d thought Buffy gone and that was just how it was. He’d promised, after all, to protect her. Until the end of the world.

Seemed the world had come and gone.

He swerved into highway traffic, cutting some bloke off with a grin and a two-finger salute. The air stank in LA, sharp memories of the last time he’d been here filling his sinuses. Been to get the Gem, and lost his pride instead. Another place that had nearly seen his demise, this city.

But where Sunnyhell was a loss, LA was something else all together.

His place to be reborn.

If the information was good.

He found a payphone eventually, some sorry excuse for one with the walls all graffiti-ed and the cord hanging on by a thread. It wasn’t the best part of town. The line only rang twice before picking up, but they were the longest bloody rings in the history of world. Still, the voice on the other end was cool and efficient sounding when it crackled through. And wasn’t it just a sign of the new world blooming that the man (or demon, most likely) would be able to see him the next night instead of some bloody month or other from now. Spike made the bloke repeat the address twice and then hung up.

He made one last trip to a butcher shop. It was a twisted kind of goodbye to the swill he’d had to subsist on for years. He savored it now, as if it was the finest wine. And then, when he’d drunk it all down, he crushed the plastic container between his fingers and laughed.

“Been at her Her Majesty’s pleasure for too damned long,” he said musingly to the crushed plastic, peering at all the creased white lines where he’d fractured the little holding cell.

Then he tossed the container away, letting it clatter into the street.

He went to the address he’d been given at sundown the next night. As suspected, the man was a demon. Some big-eyed blue type with odd bits of fur. Went simply by ‘Doc,’ which gave Spike a bit of the heebies, considering the last bloke to go by that had destroyed his entire fucking life.

Guess it was some kind of perverse payback that another of the same name would create it anew.

He’d taken along two bottles of Jack, just in case, but the demon had his own bit of relief, something that made Spike’s eyes all cross-eyed and his limbs sort of remember what warmth felt like.

There was a chance he’d been played, of course. That he’d be robbed blind, or beat, or just plain dusted.

But it wasn’t like he had anything left to worry about if it really was any of the above.

He surrendered to the dark.

When he came to, Doc was examining his head with a low hum, a tuneless sound that filtered into Spike’s ears like music underwater. All bubbles and no substance.

“Did it work?”

Doc just smiled – teeth sharper than a vamp’s – and held out the chip.

“Bloody fucking hell.”

Hard to believe something so small had brought him so low.

He crushed the damn thing beneath his boot.

He stayed in Doc’s quiet room until he could stand without stumbling, then he slid into the night.

But once outside, he came to a standstill. The world swept by him, a noisy chaos of lights and sound and hunger.

God, he’d almost forgotten how it felt to be hungry when hope was perched on his shoulder. When the promise of satisfaction was whispering in his ear. The demon roared to life.

He was so fucking hungry.

And now finally,  _finally_  he could eat.

He found a crowded bar down the street. Some back alley shithole with darts and a bar so filthy it was growing its own city in the cracks. He ordered a beer, fixed on a leer, and waited.

The woman who approached him first was a bottle blonde, the shade so close to memory that he nearly flinched. He pulled her into the alleyway out back, where the greasy outside light darkened her hair enough to scatter the thought. Thank fuck.

He covered her mouth with a tight hand as the bones grated in his face, stifling her scream before it sounded. She struggled then, her heart racing like a jackhammer, her delicious blood pounding to the surface, everything in her tinged with fear. She tried to bite his hand and he chuckled.

“Gettin’ friendly then?” he murmured by her ear, like a lover.

She trembled in his arms, her back scraping against the rough bricks.

She was his. God, she was his.

He pierced her warm and tender flesh and sank into her veins. And fuck if it wasn’t the most brilliant moment of his existence as he drank. Not that the blood was anything much really – not even worth a footnote in comparison to the ecstasy Other!Buffy had shared with him – but he’d still been bound and gagged then. He could take only what was freely given.

No longer.

He drank deeply and let himself grow heady with fire. Unbidden, memories of Other!Buffy slipped into his head, tenderness in a place where only hunger and satiety was supposed to live.

 

_“I’m not sure there’s a version of you I wouldn’t care about.”_

_Bitter disbelief filled him. “Dunno, pet,” he said lowly. “Pretty sure you wouldn’t have liked me a couple years back.”_

_“What, when you were a mass murderer with poor dating skills? Unchipped evil vampire?”_

_Spike felt his jaw clench. Guess some things were the same in any fucking universe. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”_

_But Other!Buffy just laughed, to his complete amazement. “Well, you don’t know me very well.” She shrugged. “Heck, most of my Sunnydale doesn’t know me very well anymore. But you’re wrong, just so we’re clear.”_

 

He paused, fangs quivering, eyes blinking open.  _Sod it all. Sod it all to seven hells._

Fangs deep in neck and he was thinking about her. He shouldn’t have been thinking at all.

There was no denying it; he was out of practice at being a monster. And he’d stake himself before he bothered to be a man again. Load of fucking good trying to do that had done him.

He took another swallow and felt his victim’s heart flutter. The telltale sign that any more was the point of no return. Any more and he’d make his first real corpse in years.

He threw the woman from him with sudden voracity, sending her tumbling into a collection of garbage cans. Her whimpering cries turned intelligible as she scrambled to her feet, stumbling backward and away from him, useless tears pouring down her face, wasted blood leaking from the holes in her neck. “Oh, t-t-thank you! Thank you,” she stammered.

“I don’t give a bloody fuck about you!” he snarled at her, advancing, and the woman relapsed into terrified keening.

Nostrils flaring, he turned on his heel and strode away, back into the street, letting his demon face melt away.

_I’m doing it for her._

He dug into his duster for his lighter and a smoke.

Maybe for her, he’d settle for being a better monster. A free one.

Maybe that was enough.

He glanced up at the night sky. It was all polluted here, nothing but clouds and smog, with purplish light reflecting back from humanity’s conveniences.

He took a long drag of his cigarette and smiled.


	6. New Construction

The last person Buffy expected at Revello Drive the next morning was Anya. She’d barely more than opened the door when the ex-vengeance demon opened her mouth.

“If you see Spike’s crypt,” she said with snapping, nervous force, “it wasn’t him. It wasn’t Xander.”

“I know.” Funny how she’d said that phrase so often in the past day, when really what she knew could fit in a thimble. The relativity of it all was astounding. Hysterical even, in a padded room sort of way.

“Oh.” Anya closed her mouth, uncharacteristically out of things to say.

Buffy opened the door wider. “Do you want to come in?”

Anya gave her a strange look, one brimming with questioning surprise. It was almost a Spike look. A look that painfully reminded her how little she’d regarded kindness as of late. And how simple it really was. An open door. An invitation. It had always seemed like a cliff’s edge before, some cartoon ending that would send her spiraling downward, doomed to scramble against gravity for eternity. As if emitting kindness would break her.

Something that promised softness could only exist to remind her that she had to be harder to survive.

But maybe she didn’t. Not really.

Anya came inside.

They found themselves at the dining room table with matching cups of coffee. Somewhere between the second sip and the eighth, Buffy was spilling her guts. Anya had lived a thousand years, had done more terrible, horrid things than Buffy wanted to imagine. Anya was the only one of their group who could handle her shame. And she did. The ex-demon was a rock. She wasn’t moved by tears or stupidity or hate. They were all things she’d seen before, things older than humanity. Buffy remembered how much that had made her uncomfortable around the other woman before, a feeling so nauseous it always registered as akin to dislike. Now she reveled in it.

“I finally broke him,” Buffy said softly, staring into her cold coffee cup. “He probably wouldn’t have ever left if I hadn’t…”

“Abused him? Acted so differently from the other Buffy? Continually told him he couldn’t love?”

From anyone else, the words would have been rife with accusation. Anya’s were simply heavy with curiosity.

“Is there a ‘D’ option, ‘for all of the above’?” Buffy sighed. “Or a ‘Buffy continues to be stupid and wreck her love life' option?”

Anya gave her an unreadable look.

“What?”

“You believe he can love.”

“Is that supposed to be a question? I think you forgot the inflection thingy.”

Anya shrugged. “Not a question. You know, I’ve never understood how you started equating souls with love. It would be like if I told you a monkey’s tail had anything to do with it being able to smell.” She paused at Buffy’s obvious uncertainty and said matter-of-factly, “Not every species has a soul. And, by the way, ‘soul’ is a big catch-all term for several different varieties of spirit. Vampires are weird because they’re half-breeds, and you always get a bit of strangeness in mutts. But, either way, a soul is just a body part. Sure, you walk a bit differently on two legs compared to four, but you still walk.” Anya eyed her seriously. “And every species knows how to love, Buffy. They just don’t all go about it the same way.”

A sudden memory assaulted her, of being held in chains, the mildewed damp of earth and the aching remnants of being shocked with a cattle prod filling her senses in tandem with Spike’s claim that it was his way of showing her what she meant to him. She’d thought him completely delusional at the time. And entirely insane, besides. (That it was also the most idiotic thing she’d ever experienced kind of went without saying.) But chains and torture and threatening to kill another in her name sounded like just the thing a vampire would swoon about. Just not a Slayer. Had that really been love? She winced.

“He tried to do it my way first,” Buffy said in utter defeat, everything in her deflated, armor dissolved. “Took me on a weird version of a date, some lame excuse for a stakeout.”

“And you rejected him,” Anya said calmly. “So he tried it the way his species tries to proclaim love.”

“Apparently. And then I just rejected him harder.” She wiped away tears she hadn’t noticed tracking down her cheeks. “Why didn’t the stupid vampire just give up?”

“Well, he did, finally,” Anya said reasonably.

Buffy gripped her mug so hard she was surprised it didn’t shatter. “Yeah. He did.”

 

***

 

It was almost expected, after so much time spent ruminating on the failures of her love life, that a piece of it would show up again. Too bad it wasn’t the piece she wanted to see.

“Riley.”

And inevitably, she was covered in grease and wearing a hat with a cow on it. Well, she probably deserved that humiliation, after everything.

She sort of expected to feel a slight thrill as her ex-boyfriend stood next to her register at the DMP. He was dressed in sleek secret agent gear, after all. And sporting a new, rakish scar that ran down past his eye. But then, Riley had never really  _thrilled_  her. He’d been lukewarm and brawny, like the brand of paper towels that claimed to be able to sop up 2.5x more mysterious blue liquid than the leading competitor. Except in real life he just ripped apart on the second swipe.

(And she had apparently been spending too much time in the grocery store, if her brain’s analogies were any indicator. Of course, with the way her pennies were pinched, she just went for the cheapest brand, absorbency be damned.)

Ironically, he wanted her for her Slayer powers. Hadn’t their relationship been based on the exact opposite before?

But it was tempting still. To pretend that she was her old Slayer self and he was rescuing her from a slow death of processed meat and orange striped attire.

_You’ll never be pre-death Buffy again._

And amazingly, the thought made her smile. “It’s nice to see you, Riley. Thanks for the tip about the Sultan demon. But it’s my town. I’ll take care of it when I get done with my shift.”

To say Riley looked surprised was probably the understatement of the year. “It’s a Suvolte demon, Buffy. And Sam and I have tracked this thing from South America.”

“Well, that’s nice,” she said perkily. “Good thing you don’t have to do it anymore.”

Turned out that sometimes the ability to lie through her teeth about her emotions was still useful. A piece of her was sorely tempted to ask who ‘Sam’ was, but she stopped herself. Riley was pre-death. Riley was over.

Riley left town.

She consoled herself by tracking the demon to its lair with a silent slew of Scoobies in tow, following Tara’s locating spell.

It was nesting in a group of caverns, one of a million gross monsters who probably had over the years. It was surprisingly cathartic to blow the whole thing back to hell. Literally.

When they were done, Xander looked at her hesitantly. “Buffy…”

“That’s my name,” she said, with the same tone she’d used for Riley. It wasn’t a giving tone.

It turned out the tone shut him up just the same way.

 

***

 

It had been nearly six weeks since Spike’s departure when she received the first letter.

Well, it was sort of a letter. It was mostly a stack of money.

Staring at the wad of worn and flattened bills, she almost missed the torn bit of paper that accompanied them.

 

_Get yourself out of that meat hell. Please.  
P.S. Know you wouldn’t believe I got the dosh above board, so here’s a sodding _ _pay stub_

And there was indeed a pay stub, all blacked out where the business information was printed. It was made out to William the Bloody.

She nearly dropped the envelope as her hands started to tremble. Everything in her filled with hope and hurting and gratitude. She rubbed her fingers gently along the blue ink’s flowing script. When she could draw her gaze away from the writing, she put the scrap of paper in his journal, just behind the poem.

When Dawn came back from dinner at Janice’s, she found Buffy on the couch, curled up with the black leather binding.

“Buffy?”

“I’m quitting the Doublemeat.”

Dawn flopped down beside her, her breath exhaling noisily. “Really? Thank god. I don’t think I can eat one of those burgers ever again. Like  _ever_.” A pause. “How are we going live, though?”

Buffy shrugged, her thoughts still filled with blue swirling letters. “We’ll figure it out.” Then she scooped her only slightly protesting sister into her arms and smiled at the huff it elicited.

It was then that she realized the scorching heat in her chest – all the blood red burning that had haunted her since Spike's departure – had subsided into something else.

It felt like light.


	7. Recast

Once the initial euphoria faded, he had a realization. It was all so much the same as before.

He continued to patrol (and how in the hell had bloody  _hunting_  sunk to her Valley girl wording? Well, he’d sunk to her in every other realm. Guessed the vocabulary was inevitable). Every beastie he killed was one less thing to make trouble in the world. One less thing left to kill her. If she didn’t do it herself sometime.

But no. He couldn’t think like that. He’d go stark raving mad.

So he hunted.

He also got the fuck out of LA. The last thing he needed was for his poofter of a grandsire to catch wind of him.

But it seemed he couldn’t leave California. Well, truth be told, he hadn’t really tried. Every man (and monster) had his limits. His was just the state line.

So he went north, following the coast like safety railing, and ended up in San Francisco. A hundred years ago, he remembered blokes calling it the bloody “Paris of the West.” He’d gone with Dru to see it not long after the turn of the century, high off his first Slayer kill. The thought made his stomach churn, to his bitter amusement. Not that he regretted killing the Chinese girl. It was one of the best days of his life, even now. But all Slayers were made to die. His had died twice already, after all. Not hard to believe her third would come before too long, and she’d end up on some other vamp’s list of best days.

He was going to go stark raving mad.

Still, he stayed put. Found a basement flat in a rough neighborhood. Suited him just fine, although it required cash on the regular. Despite what he always led the bleeding Scoobies to believe, he always had a bit of dosh locked away. He hadn’t been an entirely useless git for a century. But Doc hadn’t been cheap, and he was burning through whiskey faster than water. Faster than usual. Would have still kept him for months, or maybe even years. But it wasn’t just himself he thought about (as if he ever really thought about himself these days. He was trying. But he mostly thought of  _them_. His girls who weren’t his girls but who would always be his girls because  _fuck_  there wasn’t anything else anyway. Even now.)

He got a job bartending in some rancid 70’s throwback punk dive where he drank as much as he served. Some place where going by “William the Bloody” didn’t raise too many brows; the manager had just shrugged, all told. “Whatever, man. I’ve heard weirder.” Then he paused. “Anybody ever told you that you look like Billy Idol?”

He gritted his teeth so he didn’t rip the sod’s head clean off. Needed the job, after all.

It was a mostly human joint, with a few odds and ends of human-esque lookers mixed in. Suited him well enough. Was easy to drag a bird out on break and make her think she’d just ended up with a rough necking when she came back in.

He spiked his hair up like he’d done ages ago in New York, which gave good credence to his preferred name. He didn’t bother to correct the assumption.

Was still a right bitch to put on eyeliner without a reflection, though. So he’d let one of the girls help him. One of them helped with a blowie here and there, too, and that was a bit of alright. Took one out back every once in a while, too, and shagged her like a bitch in heat. Was all better when he had her pressed against the wall and didn’t have to look at her face. They all looked the same anyway.

He spent nearly a week with the first damned envelope in his pocket. Debated a dozen ways from Sunday on whether to send it or not. At the last minute, he added a P.S. and a blacked out paystub. Figured it might keep her from setting fire to the whole lot, at least for a moment or two.

The second one was easier, and he sent it a week after the first.

_Get the Bit some school clothes, or some shiny bauble. Something to make her smile. She didn’t smile much there for a tick. Tell her… well, know you’ll tell her whatever you bloody well want, if anything. But if she asks about me... say something good. Actually, don’t say a sodding thing. If she thinks I’m buying her off, she’ll be right brassed._

It soothed his sanity. Even if all Buffy did was throw the envelopes away. He was half tempted to send a check, just to see if the money was taken. But no, that was traceable (not that she’d come looking for him, but he had his pride now. At least some shred of it). And he was probably better off not knowing, anyway.

_Hope you’re eating well. Grease isn’t a food group. Sugar isn’t, either. Gonna rot out your teeth someday. Get a nice meal, yeah?_

The notes were more for himself than her, after awhile. Almost perversely, it helped to pretend she never read them. There was hope that way. Still, he didn’t write the most private things, even when there was no way she could reject him through this method. He stuck to the things his heart could bear (and wasn’t that a fucking joke?). She’d said once that he was in love with pain. He figured she was probably right. Of course, he was also in love with her. And he’d never been able to tell where one ended and the other began.

He wondered what the other Buffy would say about it.  _I love you, too._

 _Thought I saw you today. Almost jumped out of my skin. Wasn’t sure if it was better or worse that it wasn’t you._ [He burned this one with his lighter and watched it float off into the night as a clump of dark ash]

 _Give yourself a day off, yeah? Think the hell beasties can manage without you for just once. Know you won’t, though. It’s not how you are. Just forget it. Wouldn’t be you without being you. Happy bloody hunting._  [This one he actually did send, after burning a few dozen more tries]

After a couple months, he wondered what the sodding hell he was doing. He wasn’t being evil (not by traditional standards, anyhow). He wasn’t being a man (although doing plenty that required the parts). It was all so much the same as before.

_Know Harris’s wedding is coming up. I'm sure you’re looking surprised right now. Like demon girl wasn’t mentioning the date every five bleeding seconds? Anyhow, need to pay for whatever monstrosity she’s got you in._

He figured, at least with this new life, he was choosing what to do and when. And he liked Saint Frank. Was a mental town, all sixes and sevens. Bloody fun. Eventually, he found a few blokes who liked to raise a bit of hell with gray hats on. Had a laugh together, taking the piss outta blokes who got scared shitless with a flash of fang or scales (only the first being his). Not much better than what he’d done in Sunnyhell, except now he could beat the blokes who saw him for a mark. Could drain them dry if he wanted. Didn’t. But he could. He walked straighter for it. Remembered how to swagger. It felt good.

 _Started dreaming of you again. You know the ones. Funny that they should come back now, after months of being gone. Except now I don’t save you. I walk away. Suppose I deserve that. Hope your dreams are better._  [This one got sent when he was arse over tits and – when he realized his bloody stupid self had mailed it – he went and got pissed all over again, hoping he could drink away the lapse.]

He confused the hell out of the vamps he staked, even worse than in Sunnyhell, where they’d sometimes heard of the traitor in their midst. There was no Slayer here for them to be afraid of. He was careful, though, to do it out of sight. Wouldn’t do any good to get run out of town. Or to get staked by some brassed off master vamp’s herd of minions.

So he hunted quietly. And he drank loudly. And he kept being in love. It was all so much the same as before.

When April rolled around, he sent her the poem again (he couldn’t help it. God, but he was a ponce). He didn’t underline anything this time around, just wrote it out. Wasn’t quite the same as reading it to her, but was the closest he could come.

Fuck, but he was going to go stark raving mad.


	8. Distinction

Willow cornered her in the kitchen after Anya left one morning. It had become a sort of set pattern, that the ex-demon would arrive at the front door a few times a week, right around mid-morning, with the sun bright behind her.

Buffy would always invite her in, and they’d have coffee and talk. And it felt like the oddest bit of normal, something she’d lost since her second death, or maybe something she’d never really had at all. No one saw the world like Anya did. And maybe that wasn’t such a good thing anymore.

Willow’s steps heralded her entrance as Buffy washed out the empty coffee mugs. They’d been on speaking terms, mostly, with a kind of roommate awkwardness that smacked of two strangers.

_You’ll never be pre-death Buffy again._

Willow smiled at her a bit nervously, a corner of her mouth tilting up. “So… you’re having breakfast dates with Anya?”

“I am,” Buffy said calmly, with an ease that seemed real. And that was new, too. This calm, as if her flesh at last felt like her own, instead of some slightly dead skin she’d been forced to throw on for lack of something better. Once, the necessity of living had stifled her and dirtied her and sucked all her breath away.  _Life in itself is nothing._  Now she understood. There couldn’t just be life. Life was fleeting and inhuman and merciless. It was just a state, as amorphous and universal as dark and motion. It had to be tempered. It had to be filled with something.

Willow chewed the bottom of her lip. She traced a finger on the edge of the counter. Very softly, she said, “Why don’t you talk to me anymore? Aren’t we friends?” She looked up abruptly, green eyes meeting green. “I’m sorry I freaked about Spike. I… it wasn’t my place. It’s just… you know, with the Xander-ness and the freakage and the  _oh_ , my best friend didn’t tell me about this big huge  _thing_  with the guy who used to be all  _grr_  and bottle-y and who built a creepy robot of you, the you who laughed in our faces about the whole sleeping with thing last year. You know?”

There was a breathless silence.

“The lung capacity, Will,” Buffy said finally, with a small smile. “Is that magically enhanced?”

Willow gave her a sheepish look and crossed her fingers teasingly. “Still on the wagon, promise.” The look dropped. “But Buffy…”

“I haven’t been ready,” Buffy managed steadily, feeling the truth in her words as they leached from her tongue. They were words she’d never really thought of in those terms until now. But thinking on her feet had always been her strongest suit. There were some things that lay unchanged by death, apparently. “I spent… I spent so long trying to spare you all from what you’d done. And I know you did what you did out of love.” She looked her friend in the eye with a kind of stoic surety she knew unnerved. A Slayer look, she’d been told. But that was wrong. It was her look, and hers alone. It was Buffy. Well, this Buffy, anyway. “But you also did it because you could. And a part of me resents you for it.” She looked down at her hands, still damp from rinsing the mugs, etched with age lines. This incarnation of her was less than a year old. This incarnation of her had perhaps lived an eternity. She’d never know. Something as simple as the lines on her hands were no longer accurate measures of her age. “The Hellmouth has been around for a long time, and will probably be around for a long time after I’m gone. The world has another Slayer and will have many more after me. And after Faith. The world didn’t need me.  _You_  did.”

There was another silence this time, the kind that was a vortex, sucking all the air from the room and leaving emotions stark and unyielding.

“It is bad that I’m not sorry you’re alive?” Willow said finally, her eyes flashing wet, something like understanding warping the edges of her stance. “I want to be sorry. I  _am_  sorry for being selfish. But I’m not sorry you’re here.”

“Here,” Buffy echoed softly, the deep burning in her chest rising for a moment, reminding her sharply of what life by itself had done. Being empty had made her try and make the rest of the world the same. Made her force him to stop trying to fill her with something real. Only the flesh was allowed. It was temporal. It never stayed. “If not for Spike, I probably wouldn’t be.”

_I’m so sorry, Spike._

She found herself continually waiting for letters. They came often, most of them bits of one-sided conversations he seemed to be predicting answers to. Pieces of the song and dance they’d written together for years. Answers she no longer wanted to give him.

She wrote him back. She didn’t have anywhere to send the replies, but she wrote them anyway, and put them in his journal. Still  _his_. She was just keeping it for a little while. Or, at least, that’s what she told herself, so that the black leather binding seemed less like brokenness and failure and still a little like hope.

_Dear Spike: I quit the Doublemeat, just like you asked. I got a job at the local gym. It’s a little weird, and a little smelly (eww, eau de feet), but it’s way better than eau de people burger. And I’m pretty sure it’s less evil._

She took to curling into bed with the small book, causing Dawnie to give her more than one weird look upon finding her sister toting around the tome like a safety blanket. But she couldn’t explain that it was the thing that filled. It was the thing that tempered life. It was all the pieces of the vampire who had loved her. All the pieces she had left, anyway.

_Dear Spike: Dawn misses you. I… I asked her about the summer. I hadn’t before. I didn’t want to know. I do now. And now I know how well you kept your promise. And how little I thanked you for it. Oh, right. Let’s not be silly. I didn’t thank you for it at all. I told her why you were gone. Really why. I told her you still love her. Because that’s right, isn’t it? You love her. I think you should have stuck with loving the youngest Summers. She’s better with hearts. I just end up putting stakes through them. I’m sorry._

 

***

 

She called Giles on a random Thursday.

“Buffy?”

“It’s not okay, you know. That you left. I know you’re hurting, but I needed you. Leaving me alone to face problems isn’t making me stand on my own two feet. I’ve been doing that for a long time, so I know what it’s like. It was leaving me to drown.”

There was a long, crackling silence.

“Buffy,” came the hoarse reply, finally, “I couldn’t… I couldn’t stand losing you again.”

“You’re still going to lose me, Giles. Being an ocean away doesn’t change that.” A flash of memory from the other Buffy lit in her mind.

 

_“In the morning,” Other!Buffy said firmly, “we’re going to have Giles and the Scoobies help me figure out how to get home.”_

_A low pang rent through her. “Giles is gone.”_

_“What, on a trip?”_

_“No… he’s back in England.”_

_“Well, who’s your Watcher then?”_

_“Um,” Buffy felt her chest almost freeze with sudden confusion, “I guess he still is.”_

Now, to him, she simply held the phone a bit tighter and said, “You’re my Watcher. I need you to act like it.”

 

***

 

_Dear Spike: I do eat things other than pizza and ice cream. Some days. I’ll save the nice meal for if you come back (I want to say ‘when’ you come back. But I don’t deserve that). Willy’s serves chicken wings now, did you know? I’m pretty sure I scared the crap out of Willy when I started crying as I read the menu. I told him it was hormones. I think that scared him more. It’s not hormones. Just in case you’re being dense. I hope you come back. I hope it every day. I know you don’t believe that, but it’s true. I’d go look for you, but the Hellmouth calls. And I don’t even know if you want me to. I’m trying this new thing where I actually listen to you. Only, I really wish I knew what to listen for._

_Please don’t stop writing._

College was currently a loss. There was no help for it. She’d missed the deadlines. So she went to the Magic Box instead.

“Anya, you’re like a thousand years old. Do you know any good poetry?”

“Just over a thousand,” Anya said mildly, “and this isn’t a bookstore, you know.”

“No, but it’s where  _you_  are most of the time.”

Anya smiled warmly at her. “I have some recommendations.”

“I’m all ears. Or, um, eyes.”

_Dear Spike: I don’t take nights off. You’re right. But mostly because I always finish the night visiting your crypt. I cleaned it up some – the upstairs section you destroyed. I tidied up the lower level, too. I can’t decide if you’d be really angry or not, but since you’re not around to argue, it’s what I’m doing. It’s selfish and I know it, but… it still feels like you in there. Sometimes I sit and imagine all the times I was there before and I picture all the things I’d do differently. I wouldn’t run. I wouldn’t hit. I wouldn’t try and hate you for loving me._

_The other Buffy told me her version of you loved her better than she could imagine being loved. I’m glad at least there’s one version of me that isn’t a complete idiot. I hope she got home okay._

Xander dropped by the day before the wedding, a jittering wreck. He wiped sweaty palms on his jeans as he stood in the doorway.

“I don’t think I can do this.”

Buffy just looked at him blankly. “Do what? Stand in my doorway?”

“Get married when one of my best friends isn’t… my best.”

Something like irritation welled in her. “What do you want from me?”

“I want to say I’m sorry!” It was pretty much a shout. He winced. “Ahn… well, she explained some things.”

It was amusement this time that filled her. “Withheld sex, huh?”

He shrugged, reddening. “Yeah. That obvious?”

“Well, it  _is_ Anya.” Buffy sighed and opened the door. “Come in, Xan.”

_Dear Spike: the wedding almost didn’t happen. There was a fake Xander from the future who almost wrecked the whole stupid thing. Xander said he almost ran. That he was like five seconds from bolting. But then (and you’ll probably find this hideously ironic) he said he remembered us. You and me ‘us.’ I told him, you know. About how you loved me and how you helped me. And how I threw it all away. And how it’s my biggest regret since coming back. He didn’t want to be me. I guess the ‘Buffy wrecks all relationships’ trope is a good warning to the rest of the species, if nothing else._

_P.S. My dress was so green it pretty much qualified as its own sentient being, so ‘monstrosity’ is totally right.  
_ _P.P.S. I never assumed you’d forget. You’ve always had stupidly good timing._

When a demon infected her and turned Sunnydale into a figment of her insane imagination, it was the first time she felt real panic. Maybe once it would have been relief. No Slayer duties. A real family with a living mom. A chance to be normal.

But not now.

Vampires couldn’t exist in a normal world.

She swallowed the antidote down.

 _Dear Spike: I dream of you, too. Well, I’ve had lots of different kinds of dreams about you over the years (and yes,_ those _kinds included, you perv). Now I dream of you mostly just here, beside me in bed. We’re not naked or anything. We’re just here, curled up, and you’re holding me and telling me you love me. And I feel… full. It’s why I always bring your journal to bed. At least then when I wake up, there’s still something of you there._ _I really screwed it all up. Screwed you up._

_I have other dreams, too, the kind with clawing and graves. I can’t help those. But they’re happening less._ _You deserve to be able to walk away. I wish I could tell you that it’s okay. Not that you need to hear it, or even want to. But it’s okay._ _Just please don’t stop writing._

When April came around, a chunk of her heart hoped he’d come with it. The poem came instead, written out in full in the flowing antique style she’d come to memorize. She had to set the paper down before she ruined it with stupid tears.

And, suddenly, it was crystal clear.

_Dear Spike: I love you, too._


	9. Restoration

It got easier, after the first few months. Everything was quieting. The madness. The ache. The burning. If dealing with the aftermath of his relationship with Dru had done anything, it had at least taught him that the wanting to dust would fade eventually. That the ghost of Buffy's presence, which colored every place and choice and sodding waking moment, would fade into bearability. And he’d managed to stop feeling bone-crushingly broken in record time (although, with only two instances to pull from, making a record didn’t mean much, did it?).

He thought about stopping the letters. Almost did, a time or two or ten. It never worked, and his nearly trembling fingers always slipped the damn packages in the mail, without fail.

Even if she didn't want what he offered her, even if it was getting all unceremoniously offloaded in the dustbin, there was the slight but defining panic that maybe, maybe she was taking the money. That she needed it. That she was depending on his near weekly sendings.

It was a bloody stupid thought, but it helped him sleep easier. And, well, if that’s all it did, then that was that.

May had been the hardest month. He could stand not being there for her because he wanted her. He could stand knowing she’d likely moved right on with her life. He could stand knowing she was probably off shagging some new Captain Normal with some poncy name like Richard, who had three pairs of shoes, a dog, and abso-bloody-lutely no damn business in the world of the Slayer.

That all, he could stand (barely).

But he couldn’t stand thinking he’d left her a warrior short. That this year’s Big Bad would be bad enough to take her out of this world yet again. He desperately wanted to believe the Powers weren’t that fucking cruel, but who the hell was he kidding? Somebody up there liked treating his Slayer like a damn rag doll, able to be tossed wherever their quacked up heads wanted her.

He couldn’t stand thinking she’d die again, and it’d be all his fault.

He drank himself unconscious for most of May. And during all the other times, he wrote to her (against all his senses, best and worse). He couldn’t help but add addendums, though.

_P.S. Don’t be dead, Slayer. Christ, please don’t be dead._

_P.S. I reckon you hate me for leaving you down a bloke when all your mates can’t get their damn acts together._

_P.S. Bloody hell, Buffy, I keep waiting to hear that you’re gone. It’s like waiting for the executioner’s axe. When it comes down, I think it’ll be a good time to see dusk. You’d think it’d be dawn, wouldn’t you? Nah, but that’s the Bit’s time. All spunk and brash young energy. Always liked the dusk, myself. Light that flows so smooth into dark, right mending day and night. It’s been a century, but a bloke doesn’t forget that kind of light. It’s you, Slayer._  [That one was a load of shite he should have never sent, but he was so arse over elbows, he didn’t even care that he was a waxing poetic like a complete git.]

When May was gone, and there was still a world under his feet and no talk in the grapevine about a Slayer who bit it, he went and threw out all the empty bottles in his flat and then went and smoked a cigarette and wondered if she was as relieved to be alive as he was for her. Doubted it. The thought made him open up another bottle of Jack.

After awhile, he realized he just had to stop thinking about it.

He stopped drinking quite so much, and noticed it was mid-summer. That had always been a bloody boring time on the Hellmouth. Seemed everything always needed a bit of kip after a major apocalypse. In Saint Frank, it was like the whole town went off its bird instead (not that it had a whole lot of bird to begin with), with tourists about taking over the whole damn street. It was good they didn’t often frequent his part of town, or else he might've drained a couple dry just out of spite. Christ, but lallygagging crowds made his fangs itch.

He laughed more in summer. One of the birds at work would make a cheeky comment, or one of his new mates would tell just the right kind of dirty crack, and he’d find himself chuckling, or grinning, or half-bent over. He realized he might be halfway happy.

Then came the day when he made it a full twenty-four hours without thinking about Buffy Summers. Granted, he’d slept through most of it, and worked for the rest, but still…

It was time. 

He packed up, shoved his spare belongings into the Desoto, and drove.

He followed the coastline again, but it wasn’t a safety rail now. It was some kind of interminable jetway leading him on, back to port and landing.

He ran over the 'Welcome to Sunnydale' sign again (the new one had a shoddy paint job, anyway). “Missed me, eh?” he said to it in passing. “Gotta give those flat footed government wankers summat to do, yeah?” Then he laughed and flicked his cigarette butt out of the window.

He found her in a cemetery, of course. It was always a sodding cemetery. He caught the glint of her hair in the moonlight first and slid forward with a kind of hunger he’d almost forgotten. He’d gotten so used to it not being her. Gotten so used to that flash of unnatural wave being some useless bint who didn’t know her left from right. Oh hell, she could’ve been a rocket scientist and it wouldn’t have mattered. All equally useless. All equally not his Slayer.

And, even now, his first sight of her face gave him pause and, for some eternal moment, he thought Other!Buffy had come back. But, no, the hair was all wrong. Too short. And there were no rings on her fingers. This was his Buffy. And she looked  _happy_. Her lips were slightly curved up, her eyes wide and sparkling as she restlessly twirled a stake in her right hand. She’d filled out a touch, too, and the gaunt pallor of anger and weariness seemed to have fled.

He felt like a demon must’ve come up and punched him in the gut when he wasn’t looking. Probably ripped out the shreds of his heart, too, just for good measure.

She was happy.

And he’d been gone.

God, it was what he’d wanted, but… he’d never felt so bloody brutalized. Not even when he’d left. Not even when he was no better than dust barely glued together.

Leaving had been good. Why the hell was he back again? He should leave.

But he couldn’t make his feet move.

And then she saw him.


	10. Entreatment

She thought at first he was a mirage. Some gleaming ghost sent to taunt her with everything horrible and stupid she’d done to the one who least deserved it. But her neck buzzed with his presence, a vibrating recognition under her skin that no other vampire in the world could recreate.  _Spike._

“Spike?” Her voice quavered with doubt, still. He could disappear at any moment. She’d had dreams that seemed as real.

Except… the Spike in them hadn’t looked like this one.

“Are you really here?” Her voice was barely better than a whisper this time, hardly disturbing the cemetery quiet. Something promised that if she didn’t disrupt the dreamscape, it might not slip through her fingers. Really, asking was dangerous enough in and of itself.

The vampire mirage stared at her with equal uncertainty, something akin to complete devastation having been written on his face upon first glance. At her vulnerable, soft question, his expression changed to confusion. She understood that. She had rarely been vulnerable with him. And never soft.

His brow was furrowed now, and he watched her as if she was the unreal one. “I'm here,” he said finally, equally softly, in the rumbling tone she’d tried so hard to memorize after the fact, cursing herself for losing even a timbre of it.

The richness of his voice sealed it.

Oh god, Spike was really here.

She hungrily swept her eyes down him, taking in his white blond hair, for once not slicked back or loose with curls. Instead it was… spiked? His beautiful face, all angles and sharp lines, almost seemed to glow in the night, brighter than she remembered it being. No, that wasn’t right. It looked like when she’d first seen him four years ago; except all the hardness in his eyes was gone, replaced by an emotion she’d never wanted to recognize as love.

But that was before.

Of course, being her, her mouth never said the things she wanted it to. “Are you wearing  _eyeliner_?”

He blinked at her, then scowled, swiping at his face. “Oh, bugger. Thought I got all that off.”

The absurdity of the whole thing made her giggle. The vampire who she had nearly daily hoped to see had come back, and was trying to get make-up off of his face. As if everything hadn’t changed in the last several moments. As if she wasn't coating herself in the feel and sight and presence of him, trying desperately to make up for the all the times before when she hadn't.

Spike stilled abruptly at the sound of her laughter and blue eyes watched her with a kind of tense silence that made her swallow. They stared at one another like statues, apparently neither knowing what to say. Well, she knew that probably wasn’t true.  _She_  didn’t know what to say. He probably did. He’d just learned not to say it. Her chest ached.

“You came back,” she managed finally, and winced when it came out flat. Stupid defense mechanisms. They didn’t belong here.

He gave a small sort of grimace at that, fiddling with something in his duster pocket. Probably his lighter. “Yeah, well, I don’t ever do what’s bloody good for me, do I?”

“You left,” she offered, before she could stop herself. It was a half-question.

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “That I did.” Something like humor crossed his lips. “Didn’t take though.”

“I’m glad.” There. There was the warmth she was searching for.

It surprised him. Blue eyes searched her suspiciously in the dark, and it made her hurt. He’d come back, but he hadn’t expected a welcome. Well, she couldn’t blame him. Once, she would’ve probably said something nasty about it. And then proceeded to shove him against the nearest crypt once her complete lack of caring was established.

He was still watching her narrowly, probably trying to figure out if she was under a spell.  _No spell, Spike. I’m just not broken anymore. I’m so sorry._

He pulled out his hand from his duster pocket and – ah – it was his lighter, after all. He retrieved a cigarette a moment later and lit it with careful pacing, giving the motion all his attention. It was almost mesmerizing, the simple beauty of his fingers in motion. How had she ever ignored that before? When the burning bit was between his lips, he looked back at her.

“Don’t have a chip anymore,” he said then, casually, watching smoke bend in the night air.

“Oh.” Everything that was bright with hope sank like a stone. Oh god. Was it possible to have your heart ripped out and for it to still be there? “I see.”

He looked at her with a twisted smile. “Do you? Never did before.”

Buffy clenched her fists to keep from trembling. To keep from falling to her knees. Her fingers tightened on her stake. “You came back to, what," she bit out harshly, "show me that you’re done? That I’m responsible for making you a monster again?”

There was sudden silence.

Then Spike strode toward her, face furious, the edges of his eyes glinting amber. “ _Bloody hell_ , woman! Sometimes you are so self-righteous you make my teeth ache!” He got close enough to her that she could feel his breath on her skin, but she didn’t raise the stake. She didn’t want to die anymore, but she had the sudden realization that she’d let him kill her, if it came down to that. She couldn’t hurt him again. Not anymore.

He growled lowly, the sound so deep it nearly vibrated her own chest. “You stupid bint. You really think I’d come back if I started killing again? You really think I’d do that to you after all you’ve been through?”

Would he? He’d come back plenty of times before. But never like this. Not with such expectation and feeling hanging between them like a tightrope. Looking into his darkened eyes, it was clear there was only one right answer to give. But her throat was so garbled with a million uncertainties and horrible hopes that she couldn’t give it voice. She silently pleaded for him to understand, her eyes riveted on his.

And he seemed to. He took a deep breath, nostrils flaring as he tried to rein in his temper. “I’m still a monster, Buffy. That part’s forever. But I’ve hung up my murdering mantle and I don’t intend to pick it up again.”

She made her tongue work, finally, clenching the stake again, but this time to keep her fingers from reaching for him. If she touched him, words would stop mattering. And they so desperately needed to matter. “So what does that mean?"

Spike sighed heavily, raking a hand through his spiked mass of curls, sending them tumbling down. “Could’ve gone anywhere, you know. Done anything. Been with anyone.” The last made her chest lurch terribly. Then he met her eyes, steady blue, overflowing with a depth of determination that awed her. “But all I wanted was to be here with you the whole bloody time. But I couldn’t just come crawling back to you. Not again.”

The meaning was clear. She’d either take him now as he was – standing, monstrous, free – or she’d take nothing. No more in between. Despite the iron in his voice, his hands shook, and she knew instinctually that he expected her to lash out at him. Cut him down again, like she had a million times before. But she also knew this time he’d leave. Permanently.

It was a good thing she’d stopped needing pain in her life.

She just wished she had the words. It was all fine and easy to pour her soul into scraps of paper. It was much harder with the living and breathing (well, sort of) man right in front of her, where his expression could signal the end of everything in a moment.

“Can I show you something?” she managed.

Spike blinked at her, clearly thrown. His face softened abruptly, although it was edged with wariness. “Sure.”

He followed her to his crypt like a shy mongrel, unable to give up the hope for a morsel of food, but staying staunchly out of kicking range, ready to bolt at any second. She paused and turned back to him, seeing his apprehension.

“We’re not going… it’s not…” she paused, huffing at her ineloquence. She met his eyes squarely and tried again. “I’m not trying to drown us in sex. That’s not why we’re going there.”

Some of the tightness in his face fled, replaced by genuine curiosity. He made a small waving motion. “Lead on then.”

When they ended up in the entrance of his crypt, he stopped dead. It wasn’t hard to imagine why, knowing the way he’d seen it last. There wasn’t much she could do about the broken furniture, but she’d repaired what she could and tossed the rest. She tried not to bring in anything new, but it was a hard place to sit without a chair. So she compromised and bought one, then threw one of his blankets over it, so it smelled like him.

She’d moved one of his bookshelves upstairs, too, and filled it with what was left of his books and all the new ones she’d bought herself, or ones that Anya had found her.

There were about a million candles strewn about, since she didn’t have vampiric vision. She bought a new candle every time a letter came. A reminder. A burning hope.

He was gaping at the display, and she had no idea which direction his emotions were going. When he looked at her, his eyes were dark and turbulent.

“Buffy,  _why_?”

“Because I was tired of making broken things.”  _Because I love you and I couldn’t fix us. But I could fix here._ She almost said the last. Longed to, in fact. And that was new, the longing. To be his, to give herself over to him. She’d done it almost every night with pen and paper, so the realization didn’t shock her the way it might’ve before. Didn’t frighten her. Didn’t disgust her. All she felt was want, followed closely only by fiery need.

But he didn’t have the context. He might not believe her. He might be angry. He had to know it all in full.

“Here.” She thrust his journal at him from the top of the bookshelf, where it always waited for her at the end of the night. She found herself unable to suppress a small sound of relief at having it truly be his again. Then she stepped back toward the door as his gaze flickered between her and the tome in his hands, his face a mix of bafflement and worry. She smiled reassuringly at him and his expression changed to all out confusion. Well, that was a little better, at least. She tugged open the crypt door. “I’m going to finish patrol and then I’ll be back. You read.”


	11. Consummation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, everyone! Thank you for following our Spuffy pair through this sometimes very difficult journey of growth. Please accept this final chapter as my dearest thank you

He read.

Opening the journal – a random one he’d picked up on a whim because it matched his coat and never filled – he found it thick with writing and notes.

He stopped breathing.

_His notes._

God, she’d read them. And  _saved_  them. She’d saved them all. Even the torn poem page he’d left on the floor as a bitter goodbye. It was there near the beginning, carefully wedged between pages. And in all the spaces between his notes was the slightly rounded chicken scratch he knew to be Buffy’s. He’d memorized her writing on accident, seen on bits of bills and papers around the house on Revello, all curved and girlish and abrupt with impatience. Didn’t think he’d ever seen so much of it all in one place, though. And when he realized it was all addressed to him, he nearly dropped the book.

_Dear Spike:_

He stepped backward, his calves bumping into the chair. He sat, figuring sitting was the only real way to go about it. Before his knees gave out on him. The action broke his concentration for the moment as he again stared around the crypt. The life he’d thought put paid to… she had scavenged. It was obvious she spent a lot of time here; the scent of her drenched every corner. And it wasn’t just old scent, either. Not the frantic remains of her arousal left as his only companion until she needed him again for a mindless fuck. No, this smelled the way homes smelled, some collection of sweat and skin and… tears? He stilled, taking a deep breath. Blood, too, he realized. Some invisible flecks on the chair and other pieces roundabout. Christ, it was almost as if she came here after patrol… every night? He sat as still as his nature would allow, trying to get the idea through his head. He wanted to dismiss it right away (bloody stupid to even dream the Slayer spent so much time here) but… his nostrils flared. There was no mistaking those scents. What the hell was going on?

He frowned at the bookshelf then, eyeing several volumes he knew weren’t his. He thumbed one particular piece that was slid just a bit out from the others, wedged in as if put back only reluctantly. It was a bit of Cummings’s work. He flipped open a few pages, his jaw nearly dropping as he found a dog-eared page, where she’d circled a poem over and over again, coating it with scribbles of  _I’m sorry, Spike. I’m so sorry_.

 _It is at moments after i have dreamed  
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,  
when (being fool to fancy) i have deemed  
with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;  
at moments when the glassy darkness holds  
the genuine apparition of your smile  
(it was through tears always) and silence moulds  
such strangeness as was mine a little while;  
moments when my once more illustrious arms  
are filled with fascination, when my breast  
wears the intolerant brightness of your charms:  
one pierced moment whiter than the rest  
– turning from the tremendous lie of sleep  
i watch the roses of the day grow deep._

He stared at the poem and her notes for a long moment, trying to muddle the meaning through his dimmed brain.  _I’m sorry, Spike. I’m so sorry_. She’d thought of him… thought of him while reading a love poem, no less. What the sodding hell was going on? He shakily returned the book to its placement and eyed the journal on his lap.

_Dear Spike:_

Jaw clenching, he read.

He didn’t make it past the first half of the notes before his body betrayed him and he had to turn away before he fucking cried all over the book that he couldn’t believe could possibly be real or true or here, but had to be because she’d right handed it to him herself, hadn’t she?

He looked back at the page, swallowing hard.

 _Now I dream of you mostly just here, beside me in bed. We’re not naked or anything. We’re just here, curled up, and you’re holding me and telling me you love me. And I feel… full. It’s why I always bring your journal to bed. At least then when I wake up, there’s still something of you there._ _I really screwed it all up. Screwed you up._

 _I have other dreams too, the kind with clawing and graves. I can’t help those. But they’re happening less._ _You deserve to be able to walk away. I wish I could tell you that it’s okay. Not that you need to hear it, or even want to. But it’s okay._ _Just please don’t stop writing._

Oh, fucking Christ. He about wanted to dust, thinking of all the times he’d nearly stopped writing. It made him rigid with fear. Swiping his traitorous eyes on his coat, he turned the page.

And dropped the book.

_Dear Spike: I love you, too._

It was a long time before he could pick up the volume again. His mind was stuck on the reply.  _I love you, too. I love you, too._  The other Buffy’s words.

And now… his Buffy’s, too? He trembled.

He continued through the notes and replies in a kind of daze, eyes lingering on the way she started to sign them all.

_Dear Spike: No apocalypse so far this year. Not even a Big Bad in sight, unless you count the three nerds who’ve been crazy annoying pains in my butt for months. If this is what the Hellmouth Big Bad has come to, I’m pretty embarrassed for evil. I wish I could tell you that you don’t need to worry about me so much. But is it awful that I’m glad you do? Because it means you might still love me._   
_Love,_   
_Buffy_

_Dear Spike: Don’t you dare dust because of me! I’ve hurt you enough. The thought that I could also cost you your life (unlife? whatever) on top of everything makes me so… ashamed. I wanted to say angry. But that’s not right. I’m ashamed. It’s a good thing you’re not around to make me say it aloud, because I don’t think I could. But I am._   
_Love,_   
_Buffy_

_P.S. Not to bring up bad thoughts (and isn’t it silly that I’m worried about that in a reply you can’t even read? I guess I’m hoping you do, someday), but a certain someone who lives in L.A. apparently has this neat glass where vamps can stand in the sun and not burn. Not an ideal spot to stand, since, you know, that certain someone is there, but… maybe we could watch the sunset together sometime. Or maybe I’ll just see if I can order a piece of that glass for the front window of the house. Of course, it probably costs a fortune and god knows that stupid window gets broken once a month, but… well, it’s nice to think about, anyway._

_P.P.S. The glass isn’t really important. I hope you understand that. I’d be as happy in the night with you. It would just be nice to give you something._

He reread that note twice. Buffy would be as happy? Spike was quite certain that not once in his life had he been able to make Buffy Summers happy. Less angry, less sad even. But not just simply happy.

But then… Buffy wasn’t the same woman he’d left half a year ago. He stroked the page. God, could she really mean all this?

He read on.

_Dear Spike: Remember when I said the three nerds were a sad bunch? Well, turns out even idiots can cause real trouble. I ended up putting two of the nerds in jail after a dumb robbery, but Warren got away. Anyway, he showed up later in the backyard with a gun (and I don’t even want to write this part because it’s going to make you feel bad and that’s the last thing I want). I was talking to Giles (did I ever tell you Giles came back? I sort of browbeat him into it. Anyway...) and my stupid brave Watcher jumped in front of me. It turns out he’d rather die than see me do it again. I was so mad at him._

_Oh geez, I just wrote that and realized it sounds like he died. Giles isn’t dead. But he was in the hospital for a while. Willow and Tara and Anya had been out at the time (a long story for another time), but the witches cast a healing spell on him at the hospital when they got back, which helped a lot. If you can believe it, the real police picked up Warren at the Mexican border. I hope he rots in jail._

_I guess it wouldn’t be May without one or several of us dying or almost dying. But I’m okay. I hope you are, too._   
_Love,_   
_Buffy_

_P.S. It was the middle of the day. Even if you’d been in Sunnydale, you wouldn’t have been able to stop this. Okay? So don’t you dare start blaming yourself._

“Bloody fucking Christ on a stick!” Spike shoved the book away and took a deep breath. Apparently, he owed the Watcher a really nice bottle of whisky. And a medal. Hell, he’d give him anything he had or would ever have for keeping Buffy alive.

Spike had no more than leapt up from the chair and started to frantically pace, trying to calm his nerves, when the crypt door swung open again.

Buffy.

She stopped immediately, looking from him to the book with a worried frown. “Warren?” she asked finally.

“Yeah,” he said roughly, halting.

They paused – still, silent – until he couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Say it,” he demanded.

_Or else I don’t believe it’s real._

Her eyes told him that she understood. And god, she was actually looking at him. Really looking at him.

“I love you,” she said simply, arms loose at her sides, more of a defenseless gesture than he ever thought she’d have around him. “And I’m sorry.”

He shrugged away the last impatiently and took a step toward her, knowing he was trembling. “I don’t care about the second bit.”

Her expression turned wry. “You should. I mean… no matter if you still love me or not.” The edges of her eyes tightened, her posture suddenly hunching. “Even if you leave again,” she whispered, with a breaking note, “I still mean it. Mean them both.”

That was it. The end of his bloody rope. He couldn’t take it anymore. He snarled and leapt at her, pinning her against the crypt wall in one quick, brutal motion. And fuck, but she felt like heaven against him, all warmth and sweat and light. Her heart rate shot up, pulse climbing beneath the skin.

“Say it,” he demanded again, letting his demon slide into view.

She didn’t even flinch. Didn’t fight his hold. “I love you.” She looked directly into his eyes. The demon’s eyes. “I love all of you.”

“Why the poetry books?”

She blinked. He knew his voice sounded rough, almost angry. “Uhm. They reminded me of you.” She looked down briefly before catching his gaze again. “It sounded like another you –  _her_ you – might’ve read to her a lot. So I tried reading to you.” She winced and bit her lip. “Well, to your crypt.” There was a soft laugh. “Wow, that sounds kind of insane, now that I’m saying that out loud.”

For a moment, he thought he might’ve dusted – burnt up from the fire of her words. He let the demon melt away and knew he was panting like a git. “It sounds…” he managed hoarsely. “Fuck, Buffy, it sounds…” he stopped. “Oh, sod it.”

Abruptly, he pushed her harder against the crypt wall and captured her lips in his. He knew she was expecting it to be rough. And he almost did it that way, every cell of him – demon and man – clamoring for her to be his. For him to take her and possess her and make her scream his name and her want of him until they were both deaf. But he didn’t. He wanted what she would never give him before. He wanted tender. He wanted to drown her in gentleness and light touches and his love. When he touched her lips softly, he half expected her to be disappointed. But instead, she sagged against him, a low keening taking up in her throat.

“Yes, yes. Oh, please,” she murmured as he dragged his lips slowly across her jawline and down her throat, light as a feather.

“You want me like this?” he growled.

“I want you any way,” she whispered. “But this way, yes. Most of all, this way.”

“Fuck,” he said again, and loosed her from the wall. He glanced down at the trapdoor. “Is the bed still there?”

She just looked at him for a moment, her eyes shining and her skin flushed. She was looking at him like he was the bloody sun. When had the whole world gone topsy-turvy? “Still there,” she echoed.

“Thank Christ,” he muttered and then picked her up into his arms like a bride, to her surprised laughter. God, Buffy was  _laughing._

“I love you so much,” he said against the tightness choking his throat.

She didn’t move her gaze from his face as he jumped through the floor opening, and her entire face seemed to light up. “I love you, too.”

He had her naked almost before she could blink. He’d take his time with her bare skin. Sod the clothes.

He laid her into bed with him.

And then, as he was bathing her flesh with his lips, and wrapping his tongue around her gorgeous tits and marveling that she was here and his and god he loved her so much, her chest started a kind of hiccupping and the scent of tears stung the air.

He froze. “Buffy?”

She looked at him, her eyes wet, her expression so full of embarrassment and sadness that his unbeating heart nearly crushed in his chest. God, no. She’d changed her mind. It was all a bloody fucking stupid dream.

She sniffled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

Anger rose in him sharply and he started to push himself away from her, but she gave a sort of shocked, panicked cry and tugged him back.

“No! No, not that,” she bit out fiercely, and his sudden fury and heartbreak paused. “It’s just…” Her face crumpled, and her words turned to a whisper. “I don’t deserve you. Don’t deserve this.”

Oh, bloody hell. He shook out a deep breath. “Christ, Slayer. You sure know how to scare a bloke right out of his skin.”

The look of agony she gave him nearly did him in and he couldn’t help but pepper her golden body with kisses, light loving touches all across her face and wrists and hips and knees. “Buffy,” he said seriously, looking up at her. “If we all got what we deserved, I’d be merrily burning right in hell and you’d still be harping away up in heaven.”

Her face stilled again and he thought for sure he’d really wrung his own neck this time. He’d mentioned the thing that had been ripped from her. Peace. Finality. He was such a damned wanker.

“I don’t want that,” she said instead, with a kind of surety that shocked him down to his toes. Her face turned a bit thoughtful, a bit yearning, as she looked toward the ceiling. “I mean, I do… someday. But  _someday_.” She looked back at him, eyes unblinking on his. “Not now. Not with you right here.”

He just stared at her. “Alright, now I  _know_ I’ve dusted, right and proper.”

She gave him a sort of sly smile. “If you’d dusted, you’d be in hell.”

Damn. She had him there.

“Some tosser made a mistake,” he said firmly. “Checked the wrong bloody box and sent me the other way.”

She outright laughed at that and it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard in his entire existence. Then she just looked at him and traced the edge of his cheekbone with an idle finger. “This is heaven then?” She cupped his cheeks with both of her hands and kissed him so sweetly he thought for sure he was going to make a mess of himself right then and there. “I think I can live with that.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. Fuck, there weren’t  _words_  for that. So he just kissed her with every inch of passion in his borrowed blood and drank in the sound of her moans and mewls and gasps. And when he at last slid home into her and watched her every emotion – and watched  _her_  watch  _him_  back – he bit her earlobe with blunt teeth and growled in her ear, punctuating it with a sharp thrust, “Marry me, Buffy.”

He knew it was stupid, but he was beyond caring. He wanted it all. Everything.

“Yes,” she gasped, as he slowed his pace to one where she could catch her breath. “Yes.” Her fingers clenched his shoulders and she squirmed slightly so he had to lean back and look her in the eyes. “But I want that ring. You know, the one with the emerald that the other Buffy had?”

He chuckled, everything in him so burning and bright and alive he thought for a moment he’d turned into a sodding human again. He felt delirious and drunk and so far off his trolley he’d probably gotten back on again. “Whatever you want.”

She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him in deeper and he had to grind his teeth to keep from losing himself right then and there. Not yet. Christ, not yet.

“I want,” she said slowly, “for you to bite me.”

Oh, bloody hell. He drew in a sharp breath. “Buffy.” He shut his eyes in a slow blink, trying to convince his mouth of the words he needed to say, even as his demon howled for her. Raged at him to take his mate. “You’re not her. I don’t need you to be her.”

The look Buffy gave him this time was so entirely innocent that he nearly snorted. Innocent, his left hand! “But she seemed to enjoy it,” she said with a slight purr.

He nearly choked on his own breath. “You’re going to be the death of me,” he managed hoarsely.

Her expression turned gravely serious. “No. Never.”

“Fuck, Buffy. Do you even know what this means?”

She nodded, twisting her hips in just a way that made him hiss with mixed pleasure and pain. The minx. “Anya explained it to me.”

He blinked, nearly breaking stride in his slow thrusts. “Demon girl? You… asked her about mate bites?”

“I wanted to know,” she said simply. “About you. About vampires. About things. I was tired of not knowing.”

He trembled. “If we do this, pet, my demon’s never going to give you up.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Pretty sure I’ve made my permanent wishes clear with the whole agreeing to marry you thing.” A look of satisfaction crossed her face that he didn’t quite understand. “My species. Your species. All forms of mating covered.”

He was speechless again. “I love you so much.”

She grinned at him. Actually grinned! He growled with mock anger and thrust into her a bit sharper. “Think this is funny, do you?”

Her expression changed to a small “o” of pleasure and she dug her fingers farther into his skin. His demon nearly crowed with pleasure. Did she even realize how well she was making love to them both right now – demon and man?

“Very,” she rasped, tilting her head to the side and revealing the long column of her beautiful neck, marred by Drac's poncy prints and, beneath them, Angel’s careless marks. Those messes, in turn, covered up the Master’s marks, though the lingering sense of the Old Bat traced through them still. Not when he was done. He snarled and let his demon drop into view as he drew her arms up into his, holding her hands tightly against the bed.

“I love you,” she told him, panting as his thrusts grew wilder inside her.

That was all it took. He sliced through her neck and deep into her veins, feeling her convulse around him with a wild cry as the euphoric heat of her life’s blood poured down his throat. His body shuddered with release as she clenched him, his seed pouring into her as he drew back from her neck with a wild growl.

Then they lay there, hands in hands, every inch of skin touching that could touch.

“Wow,” Buffy murmured at last. She looked up at him and he knew his eyes were likely glazed over.

He licked the last of her blood from his lips, shivering with pleasure. Then he blinked in sudden realization. “You taste different.”

She frowned at him. “Huh?”

“You taste different,” he said almost wonderingly, “from the other Buffy. Not much, mind you. But… different.”

Something uncertain flashed in her eyes. “Different?”

He nuzzled her neck reassuringly. “Good different.”

“Oh.” It was a light breath, redolent with relief. “Good.”

“You taste like mine,” he continued, leaning back to look at her. “My Buffy.”

She smiled at him, and he thought for sure someone had let the damn sun in. “Well, good. Because I am.” She paused then, looking unsure. “Spike?”

“Yes, luv?”

“Can you… hold me?” She flushed. “I mean, I want to make love to you more. A lot more. But…”

He started trembling again. “God, yes.” He rolled off of her and tugged her tight against his chest. His mate. His woman. His Slayer.

She made a small mewl of satisfaction and buried herself into his arms. “Will you tell me? About where you were?”

He swallowed. “Does it matter?”

“Matters a lot. Want to know you.” She looked up at him, gaze twinkling. “And I really want to know why you were wearing eyeliner.”

“Ah. Was trying out an old-new look.” He paused, raising a brow. “You sound like you might’ve liked it, pet.”

She bit her lip and gave him a sly look. “It looked good on you.”

He felt his prick harden again. “Will wear it anytime you like.” He paused. “Might just need a spot of help getting it on.”

She just nodded. Didn’t ask how he’d gotten it on before. Who had helped him. Even though he knew the thought had crossed her mind.

“Could be fun,” she murmured.

He knew he was gaping at her. “Fun,” he repeated slowly, unable to keep the wonder from his voice. Buffy wanted to have fun with him.

A flash of pain crossed her face and he nearly cried out in protest. But then she just looked at him, and it was all love again. And he didn’t know how he wasn’t dust. “Fun,” she repeated. Then very softly, “Life in itself is nothing.”

“And you wanna fill yours with fun.”

A mischievous smirk graced her lips. “I want to fill it with you.”

He growled at her, pressing his stiffy against her thigh. God, the things he wanted to do to her. The things she might actually let him do now. “That can be arranged, pet.”

“It had better.” She glanced around the crypt, an odd looking crossing her face. “Spike? Will you move in with me?”

He paused the dirty litany of his brain, blinking at her almost dumbly. “Move in?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, I’m rather attached to the crypt these days, but… Dawnie’s at the house and I kind of like having a real kitchen, and so on. And living in a cemetery really doesn’t sound like appropriate work-life balance.”

He knew he was grinning like an idiot, but he didn’t sodding care. “No, it doesn’t,” he agreed. “Think a bit of a move can be arranged.”

She sighed against him, and he realized she’d been worried. Bloody hell,  _she’d_  been worried?

He gave a sort of breathless laugh. “Christ, pet. We’re covering all the bases in short order. Mating, getting married, moving in…”

She shrugged, looking a little sheepish. “I’ve had a lot of time on my hands since you’ve been gone. Thought about it a lot.”

“It?”

“What I wanted.”

“And that was me,” he said in wonder.

“You,” she agreed. She buried herself against his chest. “God, Spike. I’m so sorry.”

“Hush that now,” he said sternly. “Not like you were the only part of that bleeding disaster of an affair.”

She nodded slowly and sighed. “I wish I could find her again.”

“The other Buffy?”

“Yeah. I owe her a major ‘thank you’.”

“She just told you some things you didn’t want to hear, pet. Was you that made the change. You that made it all better.”

Buffy looked at him steadily. “You, too.”

“Yeah,” he said softly. He cringed. “Sure didn’t feel like it at the time.”

Buffy just shrugged. “Speaking of, you were going to tell me about your time away? You’ve read about most of mine here.”

He looked at her. His Slayer. His mate. His future wife. “Later,” he said roughly. And then he kissed her protests away and _fuck_  but he thought for sure he must’ve dusted as he slid into her again. Thank god for useless bureaucratic wankers who didn’t know well enough to double-check their boxes.


End file.
